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If hard work counts, Kobe league best by far

The most intriguing NBA post-season in recent memory begins today and if the seedings hold – and, yes, we understand that's a not-so-safe assumption – we're a couple of months away from the first Lakers-Celtics final since Magic Johnson and Larry Bird wound down a rivalry that helped build the modern league.

The most intriguing NBA post-season in recent memory begins today and if the seedings hold – and, yes, we understand that's a not-so-safe assumption – we're a couple of months away from the first Lakers-Celtics final since Magic Johnson and Larry Bird wound down a rivalry that helped build the modern league.

Who'd have thought it could happen? It was less than a year ago, after all, that the Celtics were laughingstocks – smart laughingstocks, it turned out, who swung the off-season genius strokes that brought Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen alongside Paul Pierce to form a team that won a league-best 66 games. And it was just last summer – long before L.A. fleeced the Grizzlies for a centre named Pau Gasol en route to a best-in-the-West 57 wins – that Kobe Bryant was sounding off in trade-me-or-trade-me-not soliloquies.

That's not the only thing Bryant was doing this past off-season. For a lot of nights in August, to get specific, Bryant was holed up in Las Vegas – not shooting dice nor making it rain, but working on his game at the U.S. national team's training camp. Jay Triano, the Raptors assistant coach who spent time on the U.S. coaching staff, had the pleasure of witnessing Bryant's individual workouts.

The scene was a quiet high school gym. The team's daily practice was long done. Most of the rest of the multi-millionaires were long gone. Triano called it "incredible."

"He's not just going through the motions when he's shooting jump shots. They're game shots, at game speed," Triano said. "And the repetitions ... over and over and over. Like, three-point shots. There are a lot of (NBA) guys, you'll watch them make 25 from each spot. He's like, 100, 200 from the corner every night. And you'd think he'd be done and he's going on to the next spot. And he goes back and he shoots fadeaways and he shoots 'em off the bounce. I was just like, `Holy smoke.' You get tired throwing the ball back, let alone shooting it."

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Think about that image of solitary toil in the coming weeks, when Bryant, favourite to win the NBA's regular-season MVP award, will almost certainly make a compelling post-season case that he's the greatest working athlete not named Tiger Woods. And think about it, too, when you're watching the Raptors and wondering why certain players on their young roster haven't progressed as athletes. Perhaps it's because progressing as an athlete is a lot of work at the expense of presumably more enjoyable options. Triano can tell you.

"This was the elite of the elite (a U.S. team that included LeBron James) and (Bryant) was the only one who was (working hard after regular hours)," Triano said. "A couple of times other guys would go back to the gym, but most of the time it was just him."

Triano's perspective is interesting, of course, because he's seen the preparation habits of another NBA great. Steve Nash, the two-time league MVP, played for Canada's national team when Triano coached it. How would Triano compare Nash's work habits to Bryant's?

"I know how dedicated Steve is and Steve has been dedicated to it for a long time," Triano said. "But (Bryant's work ethic) was as intense as I've seen anybody over a short period of time.

"It was unbelievable. It wasn't just me. Even the other players were like, `He is so determined and bound to be the best player in the world right now . . . ' He just did whatever the coaches asked.

"He was on a mission. I didn't know if it was to qualify for the Olympics, to win the gold medal or just be the best basketball player in the world right now."

He's the best basketball player in the world right now and, bless the springtime, starting tomorrow we all get to see Bryant go to work.

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